'Little America' review: America's longest war, in 384 pages

," the title of Rajiv Chandrasekaran's study of the last three years of war in Afghanistan, harks back to an ambitious American plan to build a farm-based mini-state in Helmand Province beginning in the 1950s. In a now-forgotten bit of Cold War-era outreach, Idaho-based Morrison Knudsen built houses, dug canals and recruited Afghans to farm the area. Many millions of dollars and 20-plus years later, the project was abandoned. As a symbol of American optimism crushed against the anvil of central Asian reality, it's a potent one.

Chandrasekaran might also have called his book "Fiasco," but that title was taken by Tom Ricks' account of America's missteps in Iraq. Yet the sequence of mostly self-inflicted wounds in Afghanistan surpasses even those cataloged by Ricks. And still, Operation Enduring Freedom, as the Pentagon calls it, continues to this day, making it the longest war in American history.

When American troops leave Afghanistan, they will leave a country led by an erratic politician whose authority isn't felt in much of the country. He will preside over a rickety political and economic system that is riddled with corruption and threatened by lethal enemies around every corner, as well as over the border.

"Little America" is a pained contemplation of America's and NATO's squandered opportunities to rescue Afghanistan from harsh extremists and install a functioning, self-governing state in its place. While the first objective was roughly accomplished, the second has bogged down in the dysfunctional dynamics between allies, agencies and the strong personalities that drive them. In a challenging war where the allies had to pull perfectly in harness if they were to succeed, they instead dueled with one another, winning the odd skirmish, but dooming the larger, shared mission.

Consider Mohammed Zia Salehi, an aide to president Hamid Karzai, who was found by investigators to have demanded a bribe in exchange for blocking an inquiry into a firm accused of illegally sending cash out of the country. The investigators were Americans, working with two new antigraft agencies of Karzai's government. They arrested Salehi and Karzai hit the roof, ordering his immediate release.

Not only did the episode cause a rift between the Americans and Karzai, who equated Salehi's arrest to earlier Soviet thuggishness, but it generated anger within the American camp. The civilians, led by Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, favored a get-tough approach on corruption. The military, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. David Petraeus, argued that Salehi's arrest unnecessarily set back relations as the military was turning over more control to the Afghan Army.

Within the military, commanders often took contradictory approaches. Marines and Army units had different attitudes about how to deal with insurgents, leading to inconsistent tactics from place to place.

Nation-building efforts were torn between short-term thinkers, who wanted to hire as many Afghan laborers as possible, and those taking a long view of the country's needs. And civilian and military leaders sought to build regional governments in the American tradition, even in areas where local loyalties were far more important. Brig. Gen Ken Dahl sought to revive a traditional tribal coalition around Kandahar -- an innovative initiative that would have been discouraged or forbidden by higher-ups.

Oregon readers may be struck by the first casualty Chandrasekaran mentions: Corp. Matthew Lembke of Tualatin died three weeks after he stepped on an improvised bomb in southern Afghanistan in June 2009 and was mourned by the Marines he left behind. His name lives on today in scholarships granted to Tualatin High students and at a Tualatin VFW post. In "Little America," his death foreshadows further tragedy.

Reading: Chandrasekaran reads from "Little America" at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Powell's City of Books, 1005 W. Burnside St.